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WITH how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the sky,

"How silently, and with how wan a face!" Where art thou? Thou so often seen on high

Running among the clouds a wood-nymph's race!

Unhappy Nuns, whose common breath's a sigh

Which they would stifle, move at such a pace!

The northern Wind, to call thee to the chase,

Must blow to-night his bugle horn. Had I The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be:

And all the stars, fast as the clouds were riven,

Should sally forth, to keep thee company, Hurrying and sparkling through the clear blue heaven;

But, Cynthia! should to thee the palm be given, Queen both for beauty and for majesty.

XXIV.

EVEN as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
The lake below reflects it not; the sky,
Muffled in clouds, affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing
Which sends so far its melancholy light,
Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
A gay society with faces bright,
Conversing, reading, laughing;--or they
sing,

While hearts and voices in the song unite.

XXV.

THE stars are mansions built by Nature's hand,

And, haply, there the spirits of the blest Dwell, clothed in radiance, their immortal vest;

Huge Ocean shows, within his yellow strand,

A habitation marvellously planned,
For life to occupy in love and rest;
All that we see--is dome, or vault, or nest,
Or fortress, reared at Nature's sage com-
mand.

Glad thought for every season! but the
Spring

Gave it while cares were weighing on my heart,

'Mid songs of birds, and insects murmuring;

And while the youthful year's prolific artOf bud, leaf, blade, and flower-was fashioning

Abodes where self-disturbance hath no part.

XXVI.

DESPONDING Father! mark this altered bough,

So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed, Or moist with dews; what more unsightly

now,

Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,

Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow
Knits not o'er that discoloring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life a Stripling's graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely
fall

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FOUR fiery steeds, impatient of the rein Whirled us o'er sunless ground beneath a sky

As void of sunshine, when, from that wide plain,

Clear tops of far-off mountains we descry,
Like a Sierra of Cerulean Spain,

All light and lustre. Did no heart reply?
Yes, there was One;-for One, asunder fly
The thousand links of that ethereal chain;
And green vales open out, with grove and
field,

And the fair front of many a happy Home; Such tempting spots as into vision come While Soldiers, weary of the arms they

wield

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Is busiest to confer and to bereave;

THIS, AND THE TWO FOLLOWING, WERE Then, pensive Votary! let thy feet repair

SUGGESTED BY MR. W. WESTALL'S

VIEWS OF THE CAVES, ETC., IN YORK-
SHIRE.

PURE element of waters wheresoe'er
Thou dost forsake thy subterranean haunts,
Green herbs, bright flowers, and berry.
bearing plants.

Rise into life and in thy train appear:
And, through the sunny portion of the

year,

Swift insects shine, thy hovering pursui

vants :

To Gordale-chasm, terrific as the lair Where the young lions couch, for so, by leave

Of the propitious hour, thou may'st per

ceive

The local Deity, with oozy hair
And mineral crown, beside his jagged urn,

• Waters (as Mr. Westall informs us in the letter-press prefixed to his admirable views) are invariably found to flow through these

caverns.

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the white-rimmed bonnet, fardescried.

Who trembles now at thy capricious mood? 'Mid those surrounding Worthies, haughty King,

We rather think, with grateful mind sedate, How Providence educeth, from the spring Of lawless will, unlooked-for streams of good,

Which neither force shall check nor time abate.

V.

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A PARSONAGE IN OXFORDSHIRE.

WHERE holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,

ON THE DEATH OF HIS MAJESTY (GEORGE Is marked by no distinguishable line;

THE THIRD).

WARD of the Law!-dread Shadow of a King

Whose realm had dwindled to one stately room,

Whose universe was gloom immersed in gloom,

Darkness as thick as life o'er life could fling,

The turf unites, the pathways intertwine; And, wheresoe'er the stealing footstep tends,

Garden, and that Domain where kindred, friends,

And neighbors rest together, here confound Their several features, mingled like the sound

Waliachia is the country alluded to.

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